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Mareh 20, 1918 ] THE!
Nothing makes you feel kinder toward people
than praying tor them. Nothing lifts a burden
off your heart like praying tor somebody else. If
you put a solution of iron yito muddy water it
will eause the mud to settle upon the bottom of
the vessel and leave the water clear and sparkling.
!So if there be wrong feelings in your
heart toward others, if you will go down upon
your knees and present them by name before God
in prayer it will clarify the waters and sweeten
your own soul.
it your pastor seems to have lost his old power
in the pulpit, pray for him, it will do more good
than going around talking about him. Maybe he
would still have that old power and many times
increased if you had been praying for him all
these years. It takes a good deal of heat to warm
up an ice house. No mmi has power with the man
out of sympathy with him. Get upon your knees
and ask God to bless the preacher, and to help
you to go up generously and speak an encouraging
word to him. If between you a slight coldness
has sprung up, thaw it out with prayer.
If conditions are such that you cannot speak
to a man direct, you can still take him to God in
prayer. And if you cannot take him to God in
prayer you cannot pray for anything or anyone.
Nothing can prevent your taking anyone to God
in nro vnr nYnonf oin A ?-?A
.M vAvvpi/ Will lil JTViUI. UHil OUUi. XXXl.ll
prayer alone can remove this sin. Many a Christian
life is barren because he will not pray for
others. You will do anything for one for whom
you regularly and earnestly pray. There is
scarcely anything you will not do to one for
whom you do not pray. You are no tit companion
for a man for whom you will not pray.
The revolt against modern methods, so-called,
in organizations which attempt to do the work
which God designated his church to do, is
widening. Hardly a paper appears in which
there is not criticism of the over-wroughht business
of setting up machinery, sending out ''experts,"
putting upon us self-styled "leaders."
One of the best short statements which we have
seen is the following, from The Presbyterian
Advance: "We believe in using the best and
most effective methods of conducting the work
of the Christian church and we doubt not that
commonly the children of this villa are wiser in
their generation than the children of light, but
we cannot help depreciating the tendency of our
times to pin our faith upon organization and
method and especially the tendency to think that
nothing is being accomplished unless we are doing
things which make a decided stir. Two unfortunate
results spring from this tendency. One
is that ministers and religious workers become
restless and discouraged if they are not accomplishing
what the world calls 'big things,' and
the other is that discouragement is caused when
some great movement trom wmcft mucn is expected
does not yield the expected vipible returns."
It is generally supposed that Boston is almost
wholly given over to Unitarianism. Figures,
however, do not warrant this idea. A Protestant
pastor who has just completed forty years of
service in that city gives the following facts:
"In 1870 there were 28 Unitarian churches. Now
there are 23. Congregational churches have increased
from 22 to 34. Their membership has
more than doubled. The Methodists have grown
from 19 churches to 33. Their membership has
doubled. The Baptists have increased from 22
churches to 38; membership doubled. The
Presbyterians have a three-fold increase in
churches and membership." It is a fact that the
Unitarian body as a whole in this country is very
little larger to-day than it was seventy-five years
ago.
PRESBYTERIAN OP THE 8 <
DANIEL WEBSTER ON CHRISTIANITY.
BY JAMES H. SNOWDEN.
An old volume fell into my hands last week,
consisting of a number of pamphlets bound together,
one of these containing the speech delivered
by Daniel Webster beiore the Supreme
Court of the United States on February 10,1844,
in the case of Steplitn Girard's will. This will
founded a college in Philadelphia in which as is
well known the rlnnor onin'mo tln.f ' ?>'>
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tie, missionary, or minister shall ever hold or
exercise any station or duty whatever in the said
college, nor shall any such person ever be admitted,
lor any purpose whatever, as a visitor, within
the premises." The will was contested and
Webster opposed it on the ground that such an
institution was not a true charity aud ought not
to receive legal sanction.
1 refer to the matter only to quote a few paragraphs
from Webster's great speech. He declares
that the will "is the most opprobrious,
the most insulting, and unmerited stigma that
ever was cast upon the preachers of Christianity,"
and this leads him to pronounce a eulogy
on the Christian ministry. "I take it upon myself
to say,'' he says, 44 that in no country in the
world, upon either continent, can there be found
a body of ministers of the gospel who perform
so much service to man, in such a spirit of selfdenial,
under so little encouragement from government
of anv kind, and iitiHpp
stances, always much straitened and often distressed,
as the ministers of the gospel in the
United States. I hope that our learned men have
done something for the honor of our literature
abroad. I hope the courts of justice and members
of the bar of this country have done something
to elevate the character of the profession of the
law. I hope that the disscussions above (in Congress)
have done something to ameliorate the
condition of the human race, to secure and to
extend the great charter of human rights, and
to strengthen and advance the great principles
of human liberty. But I contend that no literary
efforts, 110 adjudications, no constitutional discussions,
nothing that has been done or said in
favor of the great interests of universal man,
has done this country more credit at home and
abroad, than the establishment of our body of
clergymen, their support by voluntary contributions,
and the general excellence of their character,
their piety, and learning."
The reason given by Girard in hip will for
excluding ministers from the very premises of
his college was that "there is such diversity of
opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender
minds of the orphans who are to derive advantage
from this bequest, free from the excitement
which clashing doctrines and sectarian
controversy are so apt to produce." On this
point Webster comments as follows: "Now, does
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tins iciiu iu suuvcit ail ucuci in iuc utility ui
teaching the Christian religion to youth at all?
Certainly, it is a broad and bold denial of such
utility. To say that the evi^ resulting to youth
from the differences of sects and creeds overbalances
all the benefits which the best education
can give them, what is this but to say, that thj
branches of the tree of religious knowledge are
so twisted, and twined, and commingled, and all
run so much into and over each other, that there
is therefore no remedy but to lay the axe at the
root of the tree itself? . . . What would
become of the organization of society, what
would become of a man as a social being, in connection
with the social system, if we applied
this moli ?f reasoning to him ;n his srclil reia
tions? We have a '.onstitutional govo-nnt.rt.
about the powers ani limitations and uses of
which there is a vast amount of differences of
belief. In all these we see elaaVr.g of d^ctriu^s
.
0 tJ T a (373) 11
and opinions advanced daily, to as great an axtent
as in the religious world.
lie presses this argument from analogy at
considerable length, and concludes this point as
follows: "The truth is, that those who really
value Christianity, and believe in its importance,
not only to the spiritual welfare of man, but to
the safety and nrosneritv nf imnmn anninfTr
* x- *
rejoice that in its revelations and its teachings
there is so much which mounts above controversy
and stands in universal acknowledgement. While
many things about it are disputed, or are dark,
they still plainly see its foundation and its main
pil'ars; and they behold in it a sacred structure,
rising up to the heavens. They wish its general
principles and all its great truths to be spread
v\er the whole earth. But those who do not
value Christianity, nor believe in its importance
to society or individuals, cavil about sects and
schisms, and ring monotonous changes upon the
shallow and so often refuted objections founded
on alleged variety of discordant creeds and
clashing doctrines."
Webster spoke during three days a total of
nine hours, and concluded with a peroration on
Christianity as the law of the land, as follows:
"But how or when it may be established, there
is nothing that we look for with more certainty
than this general principle, that Christianity is
part of the law of the land. This was the case
among the Puritans of England, the Episcopalians
of the Southern States, the Pennsylvania
Quakers, the Baptists, the mass of the followers
of Whitefield and Wesley, and the Presbyterians
?all?all brought and all adopted this great
truth?and all have sustained it. And where
there is any religious sentiment among men at
all, this sentiment incorporates itself in law.
Everything declares it! The massive cathedral
of the Catholic; the Episcopalian Church, with
its lofty spire pointing heavenward; the plain
temple of the Quaker; the log church of the pioneer
of the wilderness; the mementos and memorials
around and about us?the graveyards?
their tombstones and epitaphs?their silent
vaults?all attest it. The dead prove it a? well
as the living! We feel it! All, all, proclaim that
Christianity?general, tolerant Christianity?
Christianity independent of sects and parties?
that Christianity to which the sword and the
fagot are unknown, is the law of the land."
The declaration of Webster was afterward
affirmed by the court before which he spoke,
lie lost the immediate case in hand, but he
helped to win an immensely broader case and
write its principles into the laws and institutions
v,;- ~ *? n? v?i- s\i
*>I 11 in tuiiuiijr, new J. urn, KJUSVTVCr.
There is a bill before Congress "to establish in
the Department of Commerce and Labor a
bureau to be known as the Children's Bureau,"
the duty of this bureau being to investigate and
report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare
of children and child life," etc. Support
of this measure is being sought, in various wajs.
!t will be well to examine it carefully before advocating
its passage, lest it turn out to be but
another form of interference by the federal government
with the rights of the several states.
That provision should be made for the most,
rigid scrutiny of public institutions in which
-L!1 J ^ * * *
cnuaren are gatnerea, as orpnanages, asylums
juvenile courts, the homes of Societies for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the like,
goes without saying. But such investigation
should be coupled with legal authority to correct
evils and to penalize wrong-doing, and this authority
belongs to the states alone. For this reason
we recommend that all whose support of the
measure now pending is sought give that measure
the most careful study.